Furthermore, the present invention relates to a method for the production of an implant for insertion into a human or animal body which comprises at least one implant part, wherein for forming the implant part a base member is produced from an implant material and this has a surface which is designed at least in the form of an artificial joint surface, wherein a wear-reducing hard material coating is applied to the entire or a part of the joint surface.
Various implants of the type described at the outset and methods for their production are known. Implants of this type are used, for example, in the form of hip and knee joint endoprostheses. A further field of use is vertebral prosthetics and, in this respect, in particular, vertebral disk prosthetics. Regardless of their end use, implants of the type described at the outset have a joint surface which is preferably designed to be wear-reducing. For this purpose, it is known to provide a base member, which forms an implant part, with a hard material coating, namely at least in an area of its surface which forms part of or the entire joint surface.
With known implants, there is normally, however, the problem that metal ions, for example, cobalt, chromium, molybdenum and/or nickel ions can leak from the implant material, namely through the hard material coating, as well. This leads to an increase in corrosion and also to an increase in the wear and tear on the implant, for example, due to flaking of the hard material coating. The negative effects described have the disadvantage that, as a result, the service life of the implant as well as the compatibility of the implant can be reduced; for example, the leakage of metal ions to a great extent from the implant material can cause allergic reactions.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an implant of the type described at the outset as well as a method for the production of an implant for extending the service life of the implant and for increasing the compatibility of the implant.